Yvonne Webb

There is no deny­ing the di­rect con­nect be­tween chut­ney mu­sic and "rum." Over the years, the blend has dom­i­nat­ed the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion, to the ex­tent that many of the com­po­si­tions have been dubbed "rum songs." Re­call, if you must, some of the more mem­o­rable hook lines, Hunter's ,"I want meh rum in the morn­ing," Rik­ki Jai's "Give me a Guin­ness and pun­cheon," and Ravi B's haunt­ing, "Girl you al­ways know I was ah drinker," and the list goes on. Chut­ney So­ca Monarch pro­mot­er George Singh Jr, said he had lis­tened to the com­plaints over the years, about this and oth­er el­e­ments sur­round­ing his mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar show, in­clud­ing the whole­sale use of melodies of In­di­an film songs.

To main­tain stan­dards, and re-brand the prod­uct, which has be­come an in­trin­sic part of Car­ni­val, Singh Jr is mov­ing to lift the bar (no pun in­tend­ed), es­pe­cial­ly in light of the big bucks win­ners are now earn­ing.

Last year's win­ner Rik­ki Jai walked away with a first prize of $2 mil­lion. Sched­uled to cost $15 mil­lion in 2012, Singh is al­so aim­ing to make the show more na­tion­al in scope. To achieve this he has shift­ed it from its base at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do, to Port-of -Spain, with the in­ten­tion to woo new East/West Cor­ri­dor sup­port. "It is not an In­di­an show. We are go­ing af­ter the na­tion­al pub­lic. We want an all in­clu­sive­ness," he said, even though the show is be­ing pro­mot­ed as the biggest In­do-Caribbean event in Car­ni­val.

For 2012, he has as­sert­ed, the lyri­cal con­tent of all com­po­si­tions in the com­pe­ti­tion will come un­der heavy scruti­ny. How­ev­er, he has de­nied that for 2012, rum songs will be banned from the com­pe­ti­tion.

"Last year, and over the last few years, there have been sev­er­al com­plaints about sev­er­al el­e­ments of the show. We have been lis­ten­ing to the peo­ple. We did not make any state­ments in 2011, be­cause the songs were al­ready pro­duced." Fol­low­ing dis­cus­sions with pro­duc­ers, artistes and oth­er stake­hold­ers in the in­dus­try, the show, which will now be held on Feb­ru­ary 11, will be gov­erned by a new set of rules.

Key among the rules would be the ques­tion of orig­i­nal­i­ty, suit­abil­i­ty of con­tent, as well as con­duct of the artiste.

"If you want to win big mon­ey, be cre­ative. Your songs must be 100 per cent orig­i­nal," Singh chal­lenged the con­tes­tants. Over the years there have been com­plaints about the lyri­cal con­tent of the com­po­si­tions and the whole­sale use of melodies of In­di­an film songs. "All songs must be orig­i­nal and that film melody used in the past will no longer be al­lowed." In terms of the screen­ing, he ad­vanced , "I know a lot of peo­ple will be com­ing and ask­ing if we are ban­ning rum songs. No we are not ban­ning rum songs. How­ev­er, we will be look­ing at your ma­te­r­i­al to see if it is ac­cept­able for Chut­ney So­ca Monarch. "Songs that are found to be de­grad­ing will not be al­lowed."

Singh dis­closed that the new be­hav­iour­al code of con­duct has been im­ple­ment­ed fol­low­ing an in­ci­dent at the end of the 2011 show in­volv­ing artiste Ravi B and the throw­ing of mis­siles on the stage. He said they can­not use the new rules to pe­nalise Ravi B, but mov­ing for­ward, ac­tion will be tak­en by the pro­mot­ers against the artiste who would have at­tached their sig­na­tures to the new con­tract. Singh said Ravi B had apol­o­gised and al­though he could not con­done the be­hav­iour, he had ac­cept­ed his apol­o­gy.

He said it was up to Ravi B to de­cide whether or not he en­ters next year's com­pe­ti­tion. At a news con­fer­ence, in San Fer­nan­do last Tues­day, Singh al­so an­nounced that the first an­nu­al Ju­nior Chut­ney So­ca Monarch will be staged. He said this com­pe­ti­tion will be open to con­tes­tants 18 years and un­der.

He in­tends to do it through schools, and in this con­text, is hop­ing to speak with Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Tim Gopeesingh to fa­cil­i­tate the process.